## 30.6. Using !$ for Safety with Wildcards

We all know about using ls before a wildcarded rm to make sure that we're only deleting what we want. But that doesn't really solve the problem: you can type `ls a*` and then mistakenly type `rm s*` with bad consequences -- it's just a minor slip of your finger. But what will always work is:

>     % ls a*
>     a1 a2 a3
>     % rm !$

(ls -d a* (Section 8.5) will make less output if any subdirectory names match the wildcard.)

Using the history mechanism to grab the previous command's arguments is a good way to prevent mistakes.

-- ML

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